<part of my ongoing attempt to forget i have a crush on someone with a boyfriend>

Work has taken a turn for the worst. I’m spending an exhausting number of hours at the office (9pm on Tue, Thurs & Sat; 11-12 on Mon & Wed; working from home on Sundays) and the brief respite I have is my weekly 30 min guitar class at Swee Lee, Sunway Putra.

I went for a drum trial class recently though and I’ve been thinking about how to allocate my remaining waking hours.

I take the train to work (and Uber to get to the station) which usually gives me around 30 or so minutes to read on my Kindle, iPad or phone. I’ve been leaning more towards the iPad recently for the numerous comics on Chunky reader (Robin and Batgirl Year One were excellent, and I’m going through the equally fantastic Hawkeye) although there are also plenty of other books etc. that I have loaded on to my iPad. I’ve also jailbroken it and added a bunch of new apps which should pare beautifully with my Logitech K380 when it arrives. When I don’t bring the iPad along, I go through Instapaper – though I’ve admittedly clogged that up to the point of being nigh unusable. There are 10,040 unread articles on it at the moment!

And then there’s the Kindle Paperwhite which only gets pulled out twice a week on average. Poor fella. This isn’t because the Kindle isn’t good – it’s fantastic. I’m just on a comics binge at the moment. I do try to schedule solo lunches though, where I get to bring along the Kindle / iPad for a quick reading session.

On the way home, I usually Uber and grab a quick nap.

I’ve somehow managed to squeeze in some time for guitar practice (10 mins a day only unfortunately) and a bit of physical reading (Zizek is too hard to turn away from) and have also spent the last week researching cameras. Initially wanted to go for the Sony a7ii but was turned away by the high price (both of the camera and the Sony lenses / adaptor) and reviews of it overheating etc. Then I looked at the 6D for a full-frame alternative but that just begs for purchases of expensive, heavy full-frame glass to pare with it. Instead I’m going for the Fujifilm X-T1 which I’ve ordered online and can’t wait to get my hands on. It looks great. The graphite silver body in particular looks gorgeous from the front but cheap and wonky from the back; it also costs a good deal more. I went for the black one instead, and snatched up a 27mm f2.8 to go with it (translates to ~ 40mm equivalent which should work great for street shots). Hopefully this will help me squeeze in a bit more shooting time. Maybe I’ll start waking early on weekends. Cuts out all the increasing depression at nights too.

Oh, there’s also a food blog + Instagram that I’m casually maintaining at the moment. I wish I could eke out more time to write. I’m a bit ashamed of how few posts there are on Foodgazer at the moment.

I’ve put aside my Goals and Projects sheet for the year and have decided to draft them out for next year onwards only. To compensate, I’m trying to jump into as many new things as I can. To reduce friction and overcome the initial learning obstacles though, I’m exploring interests that aren’t too far off from what I already enjoy/know.

For instance, drums. Realistically I’ll only be able to properly pick this up next year, but the trial class was really fun. I’m going to mull over this for a bit, and hopefully come to a decision by October. My rhythmic sense has always been pretty appalling and drum classes are a great first step to fixing that. Unfortunately, I’ll need to get a drum practice pad as electric drums are pretty damn expensive.

In addition, I’ll be selling my MPK Mini and picking up an Arturia Minilab (yeah, I’m not too sure why either) or a Panorama P6 61 key controller (so expensive though!) and teaching myself how to play the keys. I know it’s not encouraged because it’s awful for proper technique but I figure I can always rectify later on when I have the money/space for a proper weighted piano/keyboard.

And hey, at least the guitar classes are going well. GAS is setting in very quickly though and I’m eyeing the Seagull Entourage S6 once again. We’ve been parted for too long! I miss Canada!

Also, Swee Lee has vocal classes starting September sooo…

Other than all that finicky music stuff, I’ve been trying to get back on track with learning about, well, stuff in general. I’ve been trying to read more on physics beyond basic pop science, more on philosophy than just Zizek – okay, not true, I’ve only been reading Zizek, more on Oxford lectures on poetry, more on Credit Risk Management by Colquitt which I would say helps a lot for my job if not for the fact that my job has turned into KYC hell. I’ve also been trying to explore Chinatown and Jamek a bit more. Not sure if I’ll get the chance to bring out the X-T1 stealthily for lunch snapshots though.